


Sure Hate to Break Down Here

by BreTheWriter



Series: Hold Me Like You'll Never Let Me Go [10]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, I still like my canon better, Pre-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Red Room (Marvel), but I feel the need to warn people nonetheless, so that's not exactly a surprise, this series has not been canon-compliant since 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 10:04:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14767499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BreTheWriter/pseuds/BreTheWriter
Summary: Natasha doesn't want to admit how much the Winter Soldier's presence bothers her. But it's starting to affect her sleeping, and she's surprisingly good at holding a grudge.





	Sure Hate to Break Down Here

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's been years since I really posted anything in this series (I've been working on this story off and on since I finished the last one, I just kept getting distracted by other projects), but I hope it's been worth the wait. (Maybe.) 
> 
> Just a reminder, _again,_ for anyone who didn't read the tags and maybe hasn't read the previous nine stories in this series (you don't have to, but you probably should): This story split off from canon a _long_ time ago, and at this point, we definitely took a left at Albuquerque.

It was three o’clock in the morning, and Natasha was beating the ever-loving hell out of a heavy bag.

She couldn’t sleep. That had never been a problem with her. She was an assassin, a good one, and she’d always done her job, whether for the KGB or for S.H.I.E.L.D. Sometimes she didn’t sleep while she was _on_ a job, but that was a choice, not something she couldn’t help, and when the job was done, she slept, so Phil had always avowed, like an angel.

Yet for the last four days, she had been sleeping like _shit._

Oh, she knew what the cause of it was, all right. The cause of it was six foot three, brown-haired and muscular, with haunted grey eyes and a square jaw. The cause of it was a man with a metal arm…and the power to destroy her. The fact that he did not, at that point, seem inclined to do so altered her insomnia not a whit.

Natasha had spent ninety percent of her life pretending the rest of the ninety percent had never happened. Up to this point, it had served her well. S.H.I.E.L.D. knew of her past, of course—or at least those who had access to her records did—but nobody ever talked about the red in her ledger. Anyway, the records were just that, records: blank, faceless, emotionless, and mostly understated, giving the bare facts and generalities. She wasn’t one to dwell on the specifics of her past, unless it was relevant to a job.

She’d tried to tell herself not to be stupid. Barnes—Steve might be able to think of him as Bucky, but she couldn’t and she wasn’t sure anyone else could—was obviously not going to rake up her past. He was still struggling to remember his own past, and she got the impression that he wasn’t willing to discuss what he had done during the years he had been known as the Winter Soldier. Anyway, she had been raised in what the KGB called the Red Room, and Barnes had been there for maybe a grand total of five weeks, at least while she was there. It wasn’t like he knew too many details anyway.

But he knew enough. He _knew_ about the Red Room, more than even Clint and Phil did, and that was the one thing that wasn’t in her S.H.I.E.L.D. file. Fury had seen to that, personally. So Stark and the others didn’t know about it at all.

More than anything else she had ever gone through, the Red Room was a part of her life she desperately wished she could forget…and knew she never would.

Natasha delivered a spinning kick to the heavy bag that had it rocking wildly. When she had realized—or more accurately, when _Steve_ had realized—that the Winter Soldier didn’t remember much of his past, Natasha had been secretly relieved. She’d been sure he wouldn’t remember anything about her. After all, if he’d forgotten the man who had been his best friend for nearly thirty years, why would he remember one among many—especially since she’d been a quarter century younger at the time, only a little girl?

But he’d given her a nasty turn. He’d looked her in the eye and he’d called her _Natalia._

Well, it _was_ her name, technically, or had been once. She’d sort of Americanized it when Clint recruited her for S.H.I.E.L.D., and now, legally, it _was_ Natasha Romanoff. But long ago, she’d been christened Natalia Alianova Romanova by parents she could barely remember. In the Red Room, in the KGB, they’d called her Natalia, but when she’d joined S.H.I.E.L.D. she’d changed it to Natasha, partly to distance herself from her past and partly because _Natasha_ was a diminutive of _Natalia._

It was what her father had called her.

She pummeled the bag, trying to beat off the emotions, glad to be alone. She knew Stark was an insomniac, but he apparently always had been—that was nothing new. Anyway, he hadn’t bothered her, usually spending his time in his lab. Clint, too, didn’t sleep well at nights, although he tried. The first night they’d run into each other in the gym, they’d sparred for old time’s sake. The next night, they’d gone up to the kitchen and made hot cocoa and just talked about nonsense.

Natasha knew, though, that Clint wouldn’t be there, not that night. Phil and his team were visiting. Clint always slept better when Phil was there, and Natasha suspected that, sometimes, it was the only sleep _either_ of them got. She hadn’t forgotten, just after they’d started settling into Avengers Tower nearly two months previously, when Phil had come for an afternoon and he and Clint had ended up sleeping for nearly a full day straight. Anyway, they could both do with the rest.

Come to think of it, so could she.

With a shout, she kicked the heavy bag so hard that it swung almost all the way up on its chain and came loose from the hook. Natasha moved quickly aside as it thudded to the ground with a force that could have broken her foot if it had landed on it.

“Nice one.”

Natasha whirled around, dropping into one of her standard defensive crouches, then relaxed when she saw who it was. “Steve? What are you doing down here?”

Steve shrugged. “Same thing as you, I suspect.”

“Can’t sleep either?”

“I was asleep for sixty-seven years. I think I can stand to lose a few nights’ sleep.” Steve picked up the heavy bag and hung it back on the hook easily. “Reading doesn’t help. Drawing doesn’t help. Lying on my back and staring at the ceiling doesn’t help. I seem to recall that working out doesn’t help, either, but I figured I’d give it a shot.”

“It doesn’t,” Natasha muttered. “At least, it doesn’t help me.”

“When’s the last time you slept through the night?” Steve asked.

Natasha debated lying, but decided against it. Steve had enough people lying to him, and he was one of the few people she found herself _wanting_ to be honest with. “Thursday.”

Steve looked at her for a long moment, then said quietly, “He won’t hurt you, you know. Whatever went on, however he knew your name—I don’t think he really wants to talk about it. Not even with you.”

Sometimes, Natasha forgot just how smart Steve really was. She turned and began pummeling the heavy bag again. “What about you?” she asked without looking at him. “Will he talk about it with _you?_ ”

“Probably not,” Steve said. He came around and steadied the bag as she punched and kicked it. She almost wished he wouldn’t, because that made it harder to avoid looking at him. “And if you don’t want me to know about it, if he tries, I’ll tell him to stop. How’s that?”

“It’s not that I don’t want you to know,” Natasha said. “I can count the number of people I trust _completely_ on one hand, and you’re definitely one of them. It’s just that I don’t _talk_ about my past. To _anyone._ ”

She delivered a spinning kick to the side of the bag, right next to Steve’s ear. He didn’t flinch. “I know. You think you’ve got too much red in your ledger.”

The trouble with exercise was that Natasha tended to focus so much on it that she didn’t spare any brain cells for her shields and filters, so while she was working out she tended to honestly answer any questions without thinking about them. It was, Phil had once said, cheaper and less harmful than a truth serum and probably more likely to work, given her past. “For once, that’s not it. Where I know him from isn’t so much about what _I_ did as it is about what was done _to_ me.” Natasha backed up, did a handspring, and planted her feet square in the middle of the heavy bag. Steve gave a soft grunt, but didn’t move. “Honestly, I’m surprised he even still recognized me.”

“This was before S.H.I.E.L.D., I take it,” Steve said. “You were—nineteen, I think your file said?”

“When Clint was sent to take me out, yeah.”

“I doubt you’ve changed _that_ much since then. It’s only been ten years.”

“It’s been longer than that since I met Barnes.”

“How long?”

“About twenty-three years,” Natasha said without thinking.

Steve fell silent for a while. Natasha kept pounding on the bag, her mind blanking out to everything except the exercise. Her world shrank to herself and the heavy bag. There was nothing else but the sweat rolling down her back and the pull of her muscles and the satisfying _thwack_ of flesh on vinyl.

At last, with a shout, she leapt at the bag, wrapping all four limbs around it, and accidentally slammed the heel of her foot into Steve’s kidney. He fell back with a strangled _oof,_ and she dropped to the ground with a startled yelp, her foot throbbing.

“You okay?” he asked, slightly breathless.

“Yeah,” Natasha lied automatically. She rubbed her foot. “You know, I always thought the term ‘rock-hard abs’ was just an expression, but that was like driving my foot into a canyon wall.”

“Sorry.” Steve held out his hand. “Can you walk?”

Natasha accepted his hand and let him pull her upright. She lowered her foot to the ground and winced. “It hurts, but I should be able to—”

“Come on,” Steve said, rolling his eyes. He scooped her into his arms, ignoring her startled squawk of dismay, and started for the elevator. “Half the people in this building are insomniacs. I’m sure there’s somebody up in the lab who can look at your foot and make sure there’s nothing broken.”

“Banner sleeps pretty soundly,” Natasha protested. “The only one likely to be up there is Stark. I’m not letting him rebuild my foot into something bionic. And it’s _fine._ It’s just bruised. Seriously, as long as I’ve been doing fieldwork, don’t you think I know a broken bone when I feel one?”

Steve hesitated as the elevator doors open. “Fine,” he said at last. “Which floor has Tony got you on?”

“ _Steve,_ ” Natasha said, embarrassed. “You don’t need to—”

“I know I don’t, but shut up,” Steve said, cutting her off. “It’s my fault you hurt your foot.”

“How, exactly, is it your fault?” Natasha asked wryly.

“Tasha. What floor?”

“Uh, the seventieth.” Natasha watched Steve press the appropriate button. “Still don’t see how it’s your fault. _I_ kicked _you._ ”

“Yeah, but I was in your way.”

“Ask Clint how many times I’ve slipped up and hit or kicked him during workouts,” Natasha said. “Once I missed the bag entirely and kicked him square in the eye. He couldn’t see out of it for a week.”

Steve laughed lightly. “You had better aim while I was interrogating you.”

Natasha stiffened. She suddenly realized _exactly_ how much she had said. “I’m probably going to hate you for that in the morning.”

“I’m surprised you don’t hate me for it now,” Steve said. “There’s a reason I quit when I did. I know you’re not ready to talk about…however you met Bucky.”

“I don’t know that I’ll _ever_ be ready to talk about it,” Natasha said in a low voice. She replayed the conversation in her head and added, “I’ve already told you more than I’ve told anyone in a long time…”

“I don’t know if I should be honored or ashamed. I know I was asking you questions while your defenses were down, and that wasn’t fair. I’m sorry.”

Natasha couldn’t help but laugh. “It’s not like you would’ve gotten answers any other way.”

Steve laughed, too. “There is that.”

They reached the seventieth floor. Steve carried Natasha down the hallway until he reached a door with a black circle containing a red hourglass. “I take it this one is yours.”

“Yeah.” There was a matching symbol on Natasha’s access card, the sign of the Black Widow. It wouldn’t have been her first choice, but it was the symbol Stark associated with her, so it was the one she was stuck with—on the outside of the room, at least.

Sudden panic gripped her, and she squirmed in Steve’s arms. “I can walk from here! No need to carry me in!”

“Whoa, hey, chill.” Steve set Natasha gently on her feet. “Squirm like that and I could’ve dropped you. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just—room’s a mess,” Natasha lied. “Laundry everywhere, you know how it is. Don’t want you seeing my…unmentionables.”

As she had expected—maybe hoped—Steve blushed a bright and furious red. “Yeah, that—that would be bad,” he mumbled. “Um, how’s the foot?”

Gingerly, Natasha shifted her weight to the foot, then smiled up at Steve. “Better already for the rest. I’ll take a couple ibuprofen and be perfectly fine in the morning.”

“Well…all right.” Steve turned for the elevator. “Goodnight, Natasha.”

“’Night, Steve.”

Natasha waited until Steve had stepped into the elevator before opening her door and slipping into it. The room was neat as a pin, but nevertheless, she hadn’t wanted Steve to see it. It was too private.

When Stark had given them rooms of their own—actually whole suites, sort of little apartments minus kitchens—he’d told them they could decorate however they wanted. Natasha had waited a couple of weeks to make sure that nobody else came in uninvited, then taken him at his word. Just to be safe, though, she had rearranged the furniture, so that the front room was the sitting room and the back room was the bedroom. There was a bookshelf, loaded with well-thumbed volumes, half in Russian and half in English, a striped loveseat, and an overstuffed armchair. The armchair was over by the window, where she could curl up and watch the rain or use the natural sunlight to read by.

The walls were covered in framed pictures. These were the ones Natasha was…less worried about people seeing. A couple of them were matted and framed newspaper articles—ones about the Avengers that had been published after the Battle of Manhattan, mostly, although there was one about the opening of the Captain America exhibit at the Smithsonian. The rest were official (or official-looking) photographs of the Avengers. There was the classic shot everyone had seen, of the six of them standing defiant on the streets of Manhattan, taken by a heretofore unknown intern who was now, apparently, getting some pretty plumb assignments. There was a shot of Captain America, a smile (obviously forced, at least to anyone who knew him) plastered on his face, shaking hands with the President at the opening of the Smithsonian exhibit. The rest of the pictures were more or less individual shots of the various Avengers that the same intern at the _Daily Bugle_ had risked his life getting during the Battle of Manhattan—Iron Man flying low beneath one of the monsters, Hulk taking out three Chitauri with a single punch, Thor and Captain America back-to-back as Thor caught his hammer and Captain America caught his shield, Hawkeye in the act of releasing an arrow from his bow (that particular shot had actually won a Pulitzer Prize), even a couple of shots with Black Widow in them.

But they were all _official_ pictures. They were all public. It was Natasha’s bedroom that had the pictures she hid.

Limping slightly—her foot didn’t feel as good as she’d pretended to Steve, which he probably knew—she went into her bedroom. The walls were floor-to-ceiling _covered_ with snapshots, with only a few places unadorned. Almost all of the pictures in here were ones Natasha had taken herself. Clustered on one wall were older shots, pictures from her younger days, her early days with S.H.I.E.L.D.—pictures of Phil and Clint—of Phil tenderly wrapping an Ace bandage around Clint’s wrist, of Clint fussing over lacerations on Phil’s head, of the two of them curled up together on a hospital bed, of them sitting at a café table and sharing a milkshake, even one she’d snapped for blackmail and ended up loving of the two of them waltzing at a charity event as part of an undercover mission. (The blackmail part of it was that the charity in question was an extremely conservative Christian organization, and since they had already decided to send Natasha in as a photographer because she was better with a camera than either of the others, one of the men had had to dress in drag and pose as the other’s wife. The emerald green sheath had actually looked pretty good on Phil.)

Most of the other pictures were newer, however. There were a few “selfies” she had convinced Steve to take with her, the older (or younger, depending on how you looked at it) man looking either fondly exasperated, reluctantly indulgent, or faintly sheepish. There was a picture she’d surreptitiously snapped from a distance of Steve and Sam standing at Fury’s “grave,” Steve looking dark and Sam silently supportive. And there were other pictures—a _lot_ of other pictures—that she had taken in the last few months, either at the Malibu house or here in Avengers Tower. Pride of place was given to the shot of the entire team, minus Steve and Sam (and Barnes, although she tried not to think of the fact that he was technically part of the team now), taken the day Fitz got his cast off and Stark officially adopted Skye. Other pictures she’d taken at that party surrounded it, and there were more pictures she’d taken later, candid shots of Thor and Jane cuddling on the sofa, of Fitz and Stark and Banner working in the labs, of Clint silhouetted against the skyline as he looked out the window.

Taking pictures was something else she hadn’t done in the last four days.

But the other pictures, the framed ones, were the ones Natasha was especially keen to hide. These were lithographs of pictures by a rather famous photographer, a woman by the name of Anne Geddes. They depicted what at a distance may have appeared to be flowers, ladybugs, butterflies, bumblebees, or teddy bears, but up close, were revealed for what they really were: chubby, innocent, (mostly) smiling babies.

Okay, maybe they weren’t the worst thing to have on her wall. Part of the reason she hid them was that she was sure some of the others (particularly Stark) would tease her about the cutesy little prints; partly it was that she didn’t want to see the looks of hastily concealed surprise on the faces of some of the others when they realized that the _femme fatale_ had traditionally feminine tastes, too. Mostly, though, it was that she didn’t want to admit what they really represented.

Most of her early childhood was a blur, but if she thought hard enough, she could just about remember a tiny, red-haired girl, busily bustling about a play kitchen, singing lullabies in lisping Russian to a family of rosy-cheeked baby dolls. In fact, that was her last memory of her life before the raid on her small village: looking over the shoulder of the man carrying her away, screaming for the doll that lay sprawled in the dirt where it had slipped from her grasp. It had been what she’d chafed at most, during her early training, and what had almost been her undoing at the end. She had always hoped that she would make that game a reality, that a white knight would ride into the village on her eighteenth birthday and whisk her away to be his bride and sing those lullabies to a real child, but fate, in the form of the Red Room, had intervened…

Dammit, now she was crying. Natasha _hated_ crying. Angrily, she dashed the tears out of her eyes and turned back to the photographs, in the hopes that they would cheer her up.

Unfortunately, the shot her eyes fell on was one of Fury shaking hands with Phil, both of them grinning ear to ear, the day Phil had been promoted to Level Seven. In the background, and slightly out of focus, was Clint, beaming proudly at his lover. Damn, damn, damn, damn, _damn._

When Clint had first spared her, talked her into joining S.H.I.E.L.D., she had been wary of him—of everyone really. Nineteen-year-old Natalia Romanova did not have good experiences with men, especially not older men. Clint was fourteen years older than she was, Phil twenty, and she’d never quite been sure exactly how old Fury was, so she’d been wary of all of them. But they’d been patient with her—even Fury, and he was patient with very few people—and they’d taught her to trust again. Within a year, she’d come to think of both Clint and Phil as older brothers. Clint was the fun brother, the one who teased her and helped her play tricks and taught her goofy stuff; Phil was the protective brother, the one who defended her and looked after her and got her out of the scrapes that Clint got her into (or, more frequently, she got _herself_ into; they’d never had an extraction plan, but that was because they always knew Phil would get them out if things went wrong, somehow).

But she’d come to think of Fury as a father. She’d accidentally _called_ him that once, five years ago, when she’d been escorting that engineer that HYDRA had wanted taken out and the Winter Soldier had shot him _through_ her; she’d come around in the hospital after surgery and Fury was standing by her bedside looking down at her with concern and fierce protectiveness, and she’d fought through the haze of painkillers and accidentally mumbled _hi, Dad._ He’d never mentioned it again, not directly, but he’d jokingly referred to her assignment as Stark’s secretary as _grounding_. And he’d looked out for her. He’d _always_ looked out for her, from the minute he got finished bitching Clint out for bringing her home like a stray kitten instead of taking her out like he was supposed to.

Losing Phil had hurt. Losing Fury had hurt _worse._ Finding out that both of them were alive, that they’d lied to her…

Well, in Phil’s defense, he _had_ died, she thought as she stripped down and reached for her sleep pants. And it hadn’t really been his decision to keep silent about his resurrection. It made her heart ache worse knowing that Fury hadn’t trusted her with _that_ knowledge, either, although since even Clint hadn’t known, she could maybe be a little more charitable in that direction. But when she’d seen Fury, seen that he was alive…

She hadn’t believed it at first. She’d thought he was a hallucination, a fever dream, brought on by pain and stress and severe blood loss from being shot _again._ But then he’d spoken, actually called her by name, her and Steve, and she’d had to call on every last reserve of strength she had not to start bawling. It hadn’t been until later that night that she’d allowed herself to cry, in the privacy of her own room, over the fact that he was _alive_ and that he hadn’t trusted her enough to let her know that he’d planned for the possibility.

And now he was gone again, off in Europe, doing God only knew what. She hadn’t gone with him because she _knew,_ she knew that the minute she crossed the ocean for anything other than a focused mission, she was at risk from the people who ran the Red Room, the people who had made her what she’d been when Clint found her. But neither had she gone with Steve on his hunt for Barnes, because she’d been terrified of what would happen when they came face to face, what would happen if he recognized her as something other than a target. Which he had.

So she’d gone off on her own. She’d patched things up with Stark, she’d looked in on a couple of people who’d been kind to her without knowing anything about who she really was over the years, she’d kept in touch with Maria and Pepper. She had never intended to take Stark up on his offer to stay, but when they’d moved back to New York and she’d realized just how tired she was, she’d agreed.

And until Barnes had arrived, she’d been…happy. Jane was like the sister she’d never had and always wanted. Clint was still her big brother, and the other Avengers had adopted her as a little sister, too. They were her family. They would look after her, and she would look after them. That was how things were supposed to work.

Now? Now she was just afraid. Afraid of the dark, afraid of loneliness, afraid of her past catching up to her and afraid of what might happen if the others got to know what Natalia Romanova really was.

She sighed, ducked into the bathroom, and uncapped the aspirin bottle. Wasn’t aspirin supposed to help you sleep? Thoughtfully, she shook out two of the little white pills, hesitated, then added two more. They tasted dreadful, but she dry-swallowed them anyway before turning on the faucet and cupping her hands beneath the stream. Two handfuls later, she finally got the bitter taste out of her mouth, switched it off, and returned to her bedroom.

Turning off the light, she crawled under the covers and pulled them over her head. The ache in her foot subsided to a dull throb, and she closed her eyes, willing the pills to do their stuff, willing sleep to come.

* * *

Natasha did manage to fall asleep, but her rest was far from dreamless. She woke up after scarcely six hours, barely any less tired than she’d been before taking the aspirin, and with her hair looking like a rat’s nest. Correction, a _greasy_ rat’s nest.

Right. First order of business, the shower she really should have taken before trying to sleep the night before.

She spent a few minutes just standing under the hot spray, letting it soak into her muscles, before wrestling with her hair. It was naturally curly, which meant it took forever to keep clean; she’d grown it out _once_ and _only_ once since joining S.H.I.E.L.D., and that hadn’t really been a choice—she’d been going from one mission to another for almost a year, and when the job with Stark had come up, Fury had told her the longer hair would work better for her cover. As soon as she’d been sprung from that assignment, though, she’d cut it back to its normal length—shoulder-length when it was straight, but chin-length in its natural state.

Once she had thoroughly cleaned her hair and scrubbed the rest of her body, she shut off the water, stepped out, and got dressed, then straightened her hair. She took her time with it, making sure she didn’t miss any or burn anything, and if she was honest with herself, she was stalling. She’d probably have straightened every hair individually if she thought it would help.

Finally, though, she could put it off no longer. She sighed, unplugged the straightener, and pocketed her access card, then headed to the communal kitchen for breakfast, assuming she hadn’t missed it.

She had. The kitchen, when she reached it, was empty, and the porridge pot stood upside down in the draining pan. But the oven was on and so was the coffee pot. Before Natasha had time to fret about them leaving the appliances unattended, she saw a note next to the coffee pot with her name on it and picked it up.

_Natasha-_

_Enough coffee left for one of your cups, and there’s a bowl for you in the oven. Didn’t want you to go hungry. Just shut everything off when you’re done._

_\- Sam_

Smiling a little, she unhooked the oversized mug she’d taken to using. It was bright blue and had the name of a photography chain on it, and Stark had no idea where it had come from and therefore didn’t object to her appropriating it. She poured the coffee, switched off the pot, then pulled out the bowl and turned off the oven. Alone, Natasha tucked into her breakfast, then washed her dishes before taking her now half-empty cup of coffee (she liked to spin them out) to the living room they liked to hang out in.

An explosion of laughter greeted her as she stepped off the elevator—it sounded like whoever was awake was having a good time. She thought about plastering on a smile, but decided against it, on the basis that there were at least three people in the building who would know instantly that it was fake and start interrogating her, whereas if she went in without trying to force emotion, she could probably get away with just saying she hadn’t slept well without having to explain _why._

She entered the room and gave a quick look around at the people in the room. From the looks of things, Stark was the one telling the story, because everyone was turned in his direction. Banner sat at the other end of the sofa from him, May in the middle, Skye and Simmons on the floor at her feet. Phil and Clint were curled up together on the other sofa, Trip at the other end, and Sam perched on the arm of the sofa next to him. Steve sat in one armchair and Jane the other; Thor leaned on the back of Jane’s chair, while Barnes hovered uncertainly in the background.

Stark, looking up, was the first to notice Natasha’s entrance. “Hey, look, Sleeping Beauty arises!”

Jane beamed at her warmly. “Morning, Tasha. Sleep okay?”

“Not really,” Natasha admitted. “You?”

“Ditto. It’s hard to get comfortable with a weight pressing on your kidneys all night. From the _inside._ ”

“I wouldn’t know.” Natasha tossed that out as casually as she could, with a slight smirk, but she couldn’t help the twist of jealousy in her stomach.

Steve, who had a sketchpad propped on his knees, raised his eyebrows in concern. “How’s the foot?”

For an answer, Natasha put all her weight on her right heel and hopped on it a couple of times, giving Steve a pointed look. He laughed. “Show-off.”

“You know it.” Natasha looked around the room. “Where’s Fitz?”

“Forgot something, he said,” Simmons offered.

“I’m sure he’ll be down in a few,” Trip said.

Natasha leaned against the doorway. “Meanwhile, what were you guys laughing at when I came down?”

“Ah, I was just telling them about my first test run of the Mark Two,” Stark said with a rueful grin.

“This would be the one where you almost got shot down by your best friend, yes?” Natasha said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yep, that’s the one.”

“Speaking of, when’s the last time you _saw_ Rhodey?” Natasha asked. She’d met him—briefly—during her undercover assignment with Stark, and what she remembered of him, he’d seemed like a good guy. She knew Fury had been considering trying to recruit him for S.H.I.E.L.D., but ultimately decided he would do more good where he was.

Stark’s expression instantly grew serious, almost worried. “Back in October, right before he shipped out. He’s on deployment right now. Afghanistan, I think.”

“He’s in the Army?” Steve asked, lifting his eyebrows.

“Air Force. He’s a pilot.” Stark glanced at Sam. “Actually, he was my first choice for the EXO-7 Falcon project, but he turned it down.”

Sam swallowed, hard. Natasha felt her hands clench into fists and tucked them under her arms, forcing herself to relax and not immediately jump to his defense. “I’m glad he did. I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t…what part of Afghanistan is he in?”

Stark spread out his hands, palms up. “To be honest, I’m not even sure he’s _in_ Afghanistan. It could be Iraq. Hell, it could be Bahrain for all I know.”

May’s eyes darkened at the mention of Bahrain, just briefly, and Natasha knew why that was, too. She’d heard the stories, although she had never asked Phil to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, and she was almost afraid to ask May, especially after seeing that look. When the older woman spoke, however, it was in a normal tone. “When’s he due back?”

“October. It’s a twelve-month deployment. If he comes back any earlier, it’ll be because we’ve pulled completely out of the war, or—” Stark broke off, and again, Natasha saw the worry flash through his eyes.

Nobody completed the thought aloud, but everyone knew what the other reason was. Phil and Clint drew slightly closer together; May’s eyes darkened again, while Sam closed his briefly and looked down at his lap. Skye and Simmons exchanged glances, and Jane put a hand to her stomach as if to shield the child in her womb. Trip’s jaw clenched, Banner inhaled sharply, Thor’s face went perfectly blank.

And, although she tried not to notice it, Natasha couldn’t help but see Barnes and Steve look at one another, see the terrible pain on both their faces. It was there and gone in a second.

“I’m sure he’ll be all right,” Natasha said softly. “Or—you know, as all right as returning veterans ever are these days.”

“War is hell,” Trip said.

“War is not hell,” Sam said, looking up. Everyone stared at him as he continued, “War is war and hell is hell, and of the two, war is a lot worse.”

Natasha felt an involuntary smile quirk at her lips as she recognized the quotation. “ _M*A*S*H?_ Really?”

Sam’s eyebrows twitched briefly, and then he, too, smiled, a little unwillingly. “Yeah, well, it’s true. Never realized how true until I got involved in one.”

“What is—mash?” Thor asked, looking confused.

“Old TV show from the seventies,” Natasha explained. “It was about a group of soldiers and medical personnel stationed in Korea during the Korean War.”

“And you are _way_ too young to remember it,” Phil said, raising an eyebrow at her.

Natasha made a face. “I got hooked on it a few years ago, when I was in the hospital. It was that or _Days of Our Lives._ ”

Barnes suddenly turned his head sharply to the right, tilting it to one side. Steve looked up at him. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure,” Barnes said, a trifle distantly. “I heard—kind of a thumping sound?”

Banner frowned. “I didn’t hear anything.”

“Sounded like it was coming from…” Barnes let his voice trail off. He headed over to the stairwell. “Be right back.”

He stuck his access card in the slot and entered the stairwell. Trip looked around. “Did _anyone_ hear anything?”

“Barnes was closest to the stairwell,” Thor pointed out. “And his hearing is incredibly acute. If there was anything to hear, he would be the most likely to hear it.”

“If there was anything to hear,” Natasha muttered.

Steve shot her a look that was partly surprised and partly hurt, and she regretted her words, but didn’t bother to deny or take them back. There was every possibility that there had been no sound at all, that Barnes was hearing things, or even that he’d made the whole thing up as an excuse to escape.

“Cut him some slack, Nat,” Clint said quietly. “The guy’s been through hell. Even if he is jumping at shadows and hearing things, can you really blame him?”

“We’ve all been through hell,” Natasha said. It was another thing she hadn’t meant to say.

“And it’s affected us,” May said in a low voice. “Sometimes permanently, sometimes just temporarily. I was never afraid of the dark as a kid, but after I came back from one mission about seven or eight years back, I slept with the lights on for about six weeks.”

Natasha stared at May in surprise. Before anyone else could say anything, however, the door suddenly reopened and Barnes appeared, holding Fitz in his arms.

“Fitz!” Simmons exclaimed, leaping to her feet. Phil, too, quickly untangled himself from Clint and stood up anxiously. “What—how—where—?”

“Found him on the landing a couple floors up,” Barnes explained tersely.

“What were you doing there?” Phil asked, sounding worried.

Fitz glanced at Barnes. “Um, this.”

Carefully, Barnes lowered Fitz to the ground. Natasha wondered what he was doing, but then Barnes stepped aside, leaving Fitz to stand unsupported. Simmons’ face lit up. “Fitz—!” she gasped.

A nervous yet proud smile crossed Fitz’s face. He took one hesitant step forward, then another. His legs wobbled, and Simmons immediately sprang to his side, slipping her arm around his waist and slinging his around her shoulders. She helped him stumble the remaining few feet to the circle of seats, where Banner quickly got to his feet, allowing him to collapse heavily onto the sofa.

Banner knelt in front of Fitz and squeezed his knee. Natasha grinned as she saw the young man’s leg twitch involuntarily. After a few minutes of poking and prodding, Banner sat back, shaking his head and smiling slightly. “Looks like your brain has re-mapped itself.”

“So I’m—I’m back to normal?” Fitz’s face looked hopeful.

“Looks like. I wouldn’t try running any marathons just yet, but a few laps around a track ought to get you back up to strength.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Simmons promised.

“Welcome back, Fitz,” Trip said with a grin.

In the flurry of congratulations that followed, Natasha glanced over at Clint and Phil. Both of them were smiling, but there was a hint of sadness in their eyes. She couldn’t figure out why at first, until she realized that, with Fitz back on his feet—literally—he would probably be going back to base with them when they left. Which meant that the team would have one less excuse to come visit—that _Phil_ would have one less excuse to come visit. God knew how long it would be before they saw each other again. And how much longer would they stay now?

If anyone else noticed, they gave no sign. Conversation drifted easily to other topics. Natasha was just considering bringing up the elephant in the room when the elevator doors slid open and Pepper came in.

“Hi, honey,” Stark said, his face lighting up as he got to his feet. “Here for lunch?”

“No, not exactly.” Pepper gave Stark a kiss, then caught sight of May, Skye, and Simmons. “Oh, good, you’re still here. Are you free for the day?”

May started to rise. “What’s the problem?”

“No, there’s no problem,” Pepper said quickly. “But it’s—it’s been a hell of a week already. I decided some pampering was in order, and Tony had mentioned you all were visiting. I thought you might like to come along.”

Skye and Simmons looked at one another, then at May, who raised an eyebrow at Phil. Phil hesitated, then nodded slightly.

May turned back to Pepper with a smile. “We’d love to.”

Stark opened his mouth. Pepper forestalled him with a finger to his lips. “Not you. I should have specified, I thought the _ladies_ might like to come along while you gentlemen…well, do whatever. I’m including you two, by the way,” she added, looking over at Natasha and Jane.

Natasha liked Pepper, and had done since her stint as Stark’s personal assistant. They’d kept in touch over the years, and Pepper had even offered Natasha a job when S.H.I.E.L.D. went down in flames. “Sounds great. I can’t remember the last time I had a girls’ day out.”

Jane struggled out of the armchair. “I’m in.”

Natasha looped her arm through Jane’s, deciding not to call attention to the flash of relief in Clint’s eyes as the women headed for the elevator.

* * *

It turned out, unsurprisingly when one considered the available evidence, that what Pepper had in mind was spa treatment. Just outside the city was a place that looked like a high-tech hospital from the outside, a perfect cube of pristine white. Inside, however, were steam-filled rooms and soft couches and more people in bathrobes than Natasha had seen outside a _very_ wild mission involving a swingers’ convention.

Pepper had gone all out. Evidently it had never crossed her mind that the others might not join her. Along with Maria Hill, who had been waiting in a limousine outside when they exited the tower, the women were treated to facials, steam baths, and full-body massages, along with everything else the facility had to offer.

“I needed this,” Pepper said, tilting her head back and letting her eyes close. Wrapped in plush robes, towels around their hair, they were relaxing together in a room away from the main part of the facility while they waited for the mani-pedi team, who were apparently running about twenty minutes behind.

“Mmm,” Hill agreed. “I think S.H.I.E.L.D. was less stressful than working for Stark Industries.”

Pepper laughed, opening her eyes. “You should’ve been there when Tony took an active hand in running it. Especially right after he came back from Afghanistan and announced he was closing down the weapons division. Talk about chaos.”

“He doesn’t seem that bad,” Simmons said.

“He’s grown up a lot,” Natasha told her. “Even in the last two years.”

“Let’s be honest, _mostly_ in the last two years,” Pepper said.

Natasha smiled. “You said it, I didn’t.”

“You knew him before that?” Skye asked.

“Briefly. I pulled an undercover job as his personal assistant about five years ago.”

“I can’t imagine that was a hotly contested assignment,” Pepper said. “Tony didn’t keep direct reports long. I was running out of temp agencies and placement services who would send anyone. If I’d known you were S.H.I.E.L.D., it would’ve explained a lot.”

“It was supposed to ease me back into the field,” Natasha said ruefully.

“From what?” Skye asked.

Natasha’s hand strayed to her side. “A bullet wound.”

May’s expression was hard to read. “The Winter Soldier?”

“You knew about that, huh?”

“I did the paperwork.”

Jane bit her lip. “I remember you saying something about that when Barnes said he recognized you.”

Natasha fought back the surge of panic and forced herself to speak calmly. “Yeah…anyway, that’s why Fury put me on that mission.”

“Why was Stark under surveillance, anyway?” Simmons asked, wiggling her toes absently in the plush thongs the spa provided for their feet. “Or was it for his protection?”

“A little of both, to be honest,” Natasha said. “He’d just announced to the whole world that he was Iron Man, which painted a big old target on him—even bigger than the one he’d had before. And he was acting like an idiot.”

“He was on a path of self-destruction,” Hill said quietly. “Fury knew that. What he didn’t know was why.”

“Did he figure _out_ why?” Skye asked.

“Eventually. His arc reactor…you knew about that, right?”

“The glowy thing in his chest that made his suit work?”

“That…wasn’t actually its primary purpose,” Hill said. “Sort of a side effect. Actually, what it was doing was keeping him alive.”

“Shrapnel,” Pepper said softly. “When he was in Afghanistan…his convoy got blown up. He wound up with shrapnel dangerously close to his heart. He built the arc reactor to keep it from working its way any closer. It was…I never did understand the science behind it, but if you’re interested, you could ask him, I’m sure he’ll tell you.”

Simmons looked intrigued. Hill sighed. “The other problem was that the element inside it…it was slowly killing him. Which scared him, so he was being even more reckless than usual.”

“How’d he fix that?” Skye asked, looking worried.

“Discovered a new element,” Natasha told her. “One that was less…deadly. Fury put him on house arrest until he managed to find it.”

“So S.H.I.E.L.D. already knew about it?” Jane asked, lifting her eyebrows in surprise.

Natasha stopped. She’d never thought about it before—but it made sense, didn’t it? Fury had to have known what the element was, but he’d let Stark think he was discovering it himself…

But Hill was shaking her head. “No. S.H.I.E.L.D. had no idea. Fury didn’t—well, he had no _proof_ that the element existed. He said he knew there was one out there, but it wasn’t based on any kind of empirical evidence. It was just…”

“A gut feeling,” May supplied.

“Not even that. More a desperate hope. He said there had to be a cure out there, and if anyone could find it, it would be Tony Stark—but he needed the proper motivation, which is why he locked him up in his house and put Coulson in charge.”

The two younger agents looked at one another. It bothered Natasha a little that she couldn’t tell what they were thinking. Reading people was sort of her specialty, and Simmons usually wore her heart on her sleeve. Either she’d been taking Natasha’s mini-lesson on espionage to heart, or she and Skye had mastered the kind of nonverbal communication that Strike Team Delta used, a kind that was very difficult to decode. May quirked an eyebrow at them. “What?”

“Nothing,” both young women said in unison, and not very convincingly.

“It’s lucky for Tony that Coulson was there,” Pepper said. “I mean, as opposed to any other S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.”

Hill nodded, looking at Skye and Simmons. “I don’t think you two realize just how lucky you are, serving under Coulson.”

“Believe me,” Skye said, quietly and seriously. “We do.”

“No, I’m not talking about as your team leader. I’m talking about as the director of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

May nodded. “You never had much direct contact with Fury, or you’d know what we’re talking about.”

Natasha suppressed her instinctive flare of anger at the implied criticism of Fury. She respected both men, and they both had their strong suits. Simmons spread out her hands, palms up. “Would you tell us, then?”

“Well…” Hill thought for a minute. “On any given mission, Fury always had a figure in his head. He might not have told anyone else what that figure was, but he knew what it was.”

“Figure for what?” Skye asked.

“Acceptable losses,” May replied.

Natasha couldn’t help but pull a face. “Phil hates that phrase.”

“And that’s my point,” May said. “Coulson will do whatever he can to keep everyone safe— _everyone,_ be they civilians or S.H.I.E.L.D. agents or even the enemy, unless they’ve been proven dangerous and he knows it’s safer for everyone if they die. Like Garrett. Fury, on the other hand, always had a number in his mind, and as long as fewer people than that number died, he considered the mission a success. Didn’t matter who those people were.”

“Well, that’s not… _exactly_ true,” Hill said slowly. “There _were_ three people he would never consider an acceptable loss. But _only_ three.”

“You’re one, I assume,” Pepper said.

Hill gave a short bark of laughter. “Oh, God, no. He’d have regretted my death, but if it accomplished his goal, he’d still have considered it within the realm of acceptability.” She grew serious, almost thoughtful for a moment. “He almost considered the Battle of Manhattan a failure. Two of his three unacceptable losses nearly died—well, one of them _did._ He refused to close the file until he had done everything he could there.”

“So Coulson was one?” Skye asked quietly.

“He was,” Hill confirmed. “And you’ve studied, Agent Skye, so you tell me—who else nearly died in Manhattan?”

Skye bit her lower lip, her brow furrowed in thought. After a moment, she said, “Tony Stark.”

Hill nodded. “Fury told me once that his first assignment as a newly-minted S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was emergency transport for Maria Stark, who suddenly and unexpectedly went into labor. He was afraid he wasn’t going to get to the hospital in time and that he’d have to deliver a baby in the backseat. Luckily, he did make it. But over the years, Fury’s kind of kept an eye on Stark—he said he felt like he had an interest in his future. That’s why he fought so hard to save him, and it’s why he was the only one who didn’t relax or rejoice when the tech announced the portal was closed—because he didn’t know how Stark was. He didn’t know if he was okay.”

Pepper shivered. Skye and Simmons looked at one another again. Partly to distract them, and partly to distract herself from her own painful memories of that day, Natasha made a big show of looking casual that probably didn’t fool anyone but Jane, and maybe Pepper. “So that’s two of his unacceptable losses. Who was the third? Rogers?”

“No.” Hill looked Natasha square in the eye. “You, Agent Romanoff.”

Natasha had had a lifetime, almost literally, of acting and deception. It took a lot to get her into a situation where she showed unguarded emotion. But at that, her eyes widened and her lips parted in astonishment, without her bidding. “M-me?” she stammered. “But—why?”

Hill’s expression softened. “You honestly think your feelings only went one way?”

Jane’s eyebrows twitched upwards in surprise, but before anyone could say anything else, mercifully, the door opened and the mani-pedi team came in to attend to their hands, feet, and nails, and conversation changed to lighter, less volatile chatter.

* * *

The excursion was just what they all needed; they returned to Avengers Tower cleansed, exfoliated, polished, and relaxed, if not perfectly happy. Pepper and Hill waved to them as they pulled away, needing to return the limo.

“Think I’m gonna take the stairs,” Skye said unexpectedly as they entered the building. “I—feel energized after that. Gotta burn it off somehow, huh?”

It was a lame excuse and Natasha didn’t buy it for a second, but she also wasn’t going to argue with the younger agent. Before she could say anything, however, Simmons spoke up. “Want some company?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea,” May said, much to Natasha’s surprise. “I’ll go up with you two.”

Natasha looked at Jane, who shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I’m twenty weeks pregnant and my feet hurt. I’m taking the elevator.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” Natasha said with a slight smile. She swiped her card, allowing them access, and pressed the button for the seventy-eighth floor.

They stood in silence for a moment, watching the numbers click upwards. Around the twentieth floor, Jane suddenly turned to Natasha. “Okay, sorry, I’ve gotta ask. Was Fury the one the guys were teasing you about when Thor and I first showed up?”

“No!” Natasha colored scarlet, both at the memory of the conversation and the idea that she would have lost her head over someone that—from what Hill had said about him driving Stark’s mother to the hospital—was at least three times her age. “No, God, no. He isn’t—it’s not Fury. It’s—someone else.” She blushed a little deeper, then forced herself to calm down. “Fury’s—he was like a father to me. I accidentally called him that once. I guess that’s what Hill meant—that he thought of me as a daughter, too…”

Jane squeezed Natasha’s arm and made an obvious attempt to lighten the mood. “Does that make him my father, too?”

Natasha laughed. “If we’re sisters—sure.”

“If we’re sisters, you should tell me who you’ve got a crush on,” Jane said with a teasing smile.

“Not happening,” Natasha said immediately. “Baby sister’s prerogative to have _some_ secrets.”

“Isn’t Steve younger than you?”

“Yeah, a little bit. He’ll be twenty-nine in a couple weeks, I think.” Natasha spoke casually, hoping that Jane wouldn’t know she was lying. She didn’t just _think_ that; she _knew_ it. One of her habits was reading S.H.I.E.L.D. files; she could probably give details of a hundred missions better than the people who had actually participated in them. Some—like Phil’s, or May’s—she’d avoided reading, partly out of respect and partly out of awe, but she’d read all the files S.H.I.E.L.D. had on the Avengers. She knew that Steve’s birthday was July 4, 1918, that he’d gone under the ice two months before his twenty-seventh birthday, and that he’d been revived almost exactly sixty-seven years later to the day. Since he’d been awake for a little more than two years, that put him on the cusp of his twenty-ninth birthday.

“And you’ll be thirty in November,” Jane said, nodding. “How about Barnes? Do you have any idea how old he is? I mean…well, actually, he lived all those years, didn’t he?”

“No,” Natasha said slowly, reluctantly. She didn’t really want to talk about Barnes. “He—apparently he was only actually awake for about two years, total, so we’re assuming he aged the same way Steve has. He just turned thirty back in March.”

“I’m really curious as to how you know that.”

“Smithsonian exhibit. Has a whole section on Bucky Barnes.” Natasha had gone with Steve, shortly after the exhibit opened, planning to tease him about the memorabilia and the inane music, but when they’d gotten to the part dedicated to Bucky and she’d seen the anguish on his face, whatever teasing she’d planned had dried up. At the time, she hadn’t recognized the man from her past in the laughing eyes and sunny smiles in the pictures and videos, but while Steve was in the hospital, in between court appearances, she’d put on a disguise and gone to the Smithsonian. She’d spent a good ten minutes staring, not at the pictures Steve had always focused on, but on the shot of the Howling Commandos in battle—specifically of Bucky Barnes holding a rifle at the ready, determination in every line of his face, and she’d been able to see him. Not the Winter Soldier necessarily, not the man who’d attacked them, but the man she’d looked up to, once upon a time.

Jane tugged at her hair absently. “Wonder if Barnes has seen it?”

“Steve said he had.” Natasha really wished Jane would change the subject, but she didn’t want to call attention to her discomfort by outright asking if she would.

Maybe something showed in her eyes, though, because Jane fell silent after that.

The seventy-eighth floor was empty. Natasha looked around with a frown, then said, “J.A.R.V.I.S., where is everyone?”

“The sixty-fifth floor, Agent Romanoff,” J.A.R.V.I.S. replied promptly. “Lunch will be ready shortly.”

“Thanks.” Natasha turned on her heel and led Jane back into the elevator. After stabbing the button, she added, “Would you let the people in the stairwell know?”

“I have just done so.”

“Thanks again.”

There was a festive air in the kitchen when they arrived, but Natasha, who was sensitive to such things, detected an undercurrent of stress. Trip was cooking something, and most of the people were laughing and joking with one another, but behind Clint and Phil’s smiles, Natasha could see the sharp pain of impending separation.

Phil turned and caught sight of Natasha and Jane. His smile immediately vanished, replaced with a look of worry bordering on panic. “Where—” he began.

“Taking the stairs,” Natasha interrupted quickly, holding up both hands in a placating gesture. “It’s okay, Phil. Skye said she had some energy to burn off, so Simmons and May went with her.”

Phil’s eyebrows drew together in puzzlement, but before he could say anything, Sam spoke. “Have fun at the spa?”

Natasha smiled automatically at him, barely aware she was doing it. “We did, actually. Very relaxing. Been a long time since I’ve gotten the full spa treatment. And it’s a lot more fun with other people.”

“Oh? You’ve gone alone?”

“Yeah, after I got shot, right before I went undercover as Natalie Rushman. Fury sent me for the works.”

Off in the corner, Natasha saw Barnes flinch, just slightly, and she felt a small, malicious pang of satisfaction. The fact that she’d been shot actually didn’t bother her much; she’d certainly had plenty of disfiguring injuries, before and since. Even the fact that it meant too many awkward questions to wear a bikini wasn’t much of an issue. What bothered her was who had put it through her…not that she’d known that at the time.

Clint shot her a quick look. Natasha’s momentary satisfaction was replaced with something more powerful—guilt—and that kind of surprised her. Less her own feelings and more the momentary reproach in her best friend’s eyes. Clint knew that the Winter Soldier had been the one to shoot her, but surely he understood why she was still holding a grudge? At least a little bit?

Well…no, actually, she had to admit that he didn’t. As far as he knew, the Winter Soldier had shot her, but then again, a lot of people had shot her over the years. Hell, _Clint_ had shot her once. Not even while he was hunting her. They’d been working a mission and she’d been rushing ahead and he’d hamstrung her to slow her down. She didn’t usually hold a grudge. Okay, she hadn’t talked to Clint for about two months after he’d shot her, but that was the only exception.

Maybe if she reminded him of that, he’d understand. At the same time, though, she’d have to explain to him that the Winter Soldier knew her from the Red Room, and that was opening a can of worms she didn’t really want to touch right about then. Not really. Maybe not ever.

Jane sank gratefully into a chair. “Ooh, I needed that. God, I didn’t realize some of those muscles were hurting until suddenly they weren’t anymore.”

“Pepper usually knows what people need.” Stark tossed this casually over his shoulder as if it meant nothing, but Natasha saw the flash of pride in his eyes as he spoke. “It’s why she’s so good at her job.”

“Which job?” Sam asked with a lifted eyebrow. “The one where she runs a multi-billion-dollar industry, or the one where she keeps you from sticking your tongue in light sockets?”

“Hey, I only did that once,” Stark shot back. “And Rhodey was the one who stopped me.”

Banner snickered. “Didn’t you meet him in college?”

Trip laughed and lifted the pan off the stove. “Hey, this is ready.”

As he spoke, May, Simmons, and Skye came through the door to the kitchen. Skye sniffed the air, a big grin splitting her face. “Did you make kung pao chicken?”

“Real Szechuan-style,” Trip affirmed with a nod.

“In other words, bid farewell to your taste buds,” Natasha said with a smirk.

“I like Szechuan food,” Sam said with a shrug.

“No, man, you like _American_ Szechuan food,” Trip told him. “The real stuff makes Cajun cooking seem bland and tasteless. If you can’t handle too hot, you’re gonna want some of the veggie stir-fry. I made that for you,” he added, looking over at Jane. “I know spice isn’t too good for the baby.”

“You _rock._ ” Skye gave Trip a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek. Stark and Phil both raised an eyebrow, but neither one said anything.

As promised, the chicken was singe-your-eyebrows hot. May and Skye both had second helpings; Thor seemed unaffected by the spice. Most everyone else switched to the stir-fry after a couple of bites. Natasha was about to put aside her chicken when she noticed both Steve and Barnes continuing to eat it and decided to stay the course. She refused to look weak before the former Winter Soldier.

The small, sensible portion of her brain told her that she was being irrational.

The rest of her brain told that portion to get stuffed.

Phil nudged Clint, a small smile on his face. “Remember Xichang?”

“Frequently.” Clint rolled his eyes, but he was smiling, too. “Often at two in the morning, when I wake up in a cold sweat.”

“Oh, come on, it wasn’t _that_ bad.”

“Easy for you to say. You didn’t have a determined duck gunning for your nuts all week.”

Simmons choked on her stir fry. “I’m sorry, _what?_ ”

“Oh, God, okay.” Clint set down his fork. “So the mission was—”

“Unimportant,” Stark interrupted. “Tell us about this determined duck.”

Clint spread his hands out helplessly. “There was a farm. She raised ducks. One of them was an asshole.”

Natasha giggled—she couldn’t help it. “And it was attempting to emasculate you?”

“Damn thing was like a self-guided missile,” Clint grumbled. “Swear to God, I had to cover my balls every time that thing was around. It flew straight towards them whenever it saw me.”

Phil laughed softly. “You have to admit, other than the duck, it was a pretty good week. Mission was a piece of cake, anyway.”

Clint’s mock-scowl softened into a smile. “Yeah, that was a pretty good week.”

“I probably don’t want details of that,” May muttered.

Skye set aside her empty bowl. “Speaking of details I probably don’t want, what were you guys up to while we were gone?”

Natasha saw the quick look of pain that flashed through Clint and Phil’s eyes as they glanced at one another, and her heart sank. It was Trip, however, who spoke quietly, his eyes fixed on Skye. “Making plans, mostly. Boss says we’re moving out today.”

“I’m—I’m coming,” Fitz said, managing a smile.

“Good,” Skye said with a grin. “We’ve missed you.”

Simmons nodded, her smile making Fitz blush. Stark gave him a crooked smirk, but there was something a little worried in his eyes. “I know I say this every time you guys leave, but—”

“We can’t,” Phil interrupted. His voice was low and slightly hoarse, and he had a small, sad smile on his face. “Now more than ever. But we’ll be back when we can.”

Natasha wanted, more than anything, to ask what that cryptic phrase meant— _now more than ever._ What was going on with S.H.I.E.L.D. that Phil didn’t think he could do from Avengers Tower? But she knew perfectly well that if she asked, Phil would gently but firmly stonewall her. There’d been a time when she would have thought she could slip through Simmons’ defenses and get the intel, but after their spa day, she knew better. The only one who might spill the beans would be Fitz, and he probably didn’t have any beans to spill. She found herself hoping, though, that Stark would start pushing. He had a way of teasing and nagging and surprising the truth out of people, and while she pretended annoyance at it, if it worked…

To her surprise, however, he merely nodded without saying a word and went back to eating. Even more surprising was when Barnes spoke up, his voice low and serious. “If you need anything…”

“We’ll call,” Phil promised. “And that goes both ways, you hear?”

Clint smiled crookedly and signed, _I do now._

* * *

Late June, early July was supposed to be hot and sunny, at least in New York. But that afternoon, the weather turned grey and drizzly. It didn’t actually affect anyone—the labs and the workout rooms were all windowless—but they were all gathered in the living room on the seventy-eighth floor anyway. Largely they were all silent, but Natasha couldn’t help but notice that they were, consciously or unconsciously, sitting closer together than usual.

Clint was very determinedly _not_ looking out the window, but his eyes were vacant, and there was a faint echo of an old pain in them. Stark was picking idly at the arm of the sofa; he wasn’t as good at hiding his distress, or maybe he just wasn’t trying. Jane was actually sitting on Thor’s lap. Steve was drawing, or pretending to, but if he held the pencil any tighter he would snap it. And although none of them said a word, there was a hole where Fitz normally was. Maybe that was why they were sitting so close—they were trying to hide the gap.

When Sam finally spoke, his voice sounded almost unnaturally loud. “Have you guys thought about names yet?”

It took Natasha a second to realize the question was directed at Jane and Thor. The latter lay his hands on Jane’s stomach. “Not as much as we should have, I suppose.”

“We could name her after your mother,” Jane suggested.

“I know very little about the sorts of names that are common on Earth, but I suspect that ‘Frigga’ isn’t one of them,” Thor pointed out. “Perhaps after _your_ mother?”

Jane pulled a face. “My mother’s name was Gertrude. Would you really do that to a helpless child?”

“That does seem rather unfortunate,” Thor agreed.

“My mom’s name was Clara,” Clint said, dragging himself from the depths of whatever hell he was inhabiting with a visible effort. Natasha found herself wondering if he knew more about what Phil and the others were up to than he was sharing.

Sam smirked slightly. “Your mother’s name was Clara Barton?”

The beginnings of a reluctant half-smile tugged at Clint’s lips. “I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason she married my dad.”

“Almost rhymes with Sarah,” Barnes said, as if to himself.

“Was that your mother’s name?” Clint asked, looking up at Barnes.

Barnes pointed to Steve. “No, his.”

“And yours was Rebecca,” Steve replied with a nod.

Stark smirked. “Good old-fashioned names.”

“What was your mother’s name, _Anthony?_ ” Steve shot at him.

Stark seemed genuinely pleased at being teased. “Maria. She was Italian.”

“My mom’s name is Jessie,” Sam said reminiscently. “After Jessie Redmon Fauset. Both my parents named after poets, and wouldn’t you know they named me after Coleridge?”

Jane smiled. “You said _is._ Not _was?_ ”

“Nah, Mom’s still alive. Lives in Chicago. I call her a couple times a month. Dad’s been gone about two years, though.”

“My mother’s name was Hephzibah,” Banner said.

Stark coughed. “ _Hephzibah?_ ”

“And my father’s name was Aloysius. I’m lucky I ended up with a relatively normal name.”

Amid the laughter that followed, Thor asked the one question Natasha had hoped to avoid. “What of your mother, Natasha?”

“I don’t know,” Natasha replied quietly. “She died when I was two.”

The laughter died almost instantly, and everyone looked at her with varying degrees of sympathy and puzzlement that kind of made her want to crawl into the ductwork and hide. Banner was frowning at her, his mouth slightly open. “Your—uh—your father never talked about her?”

Oh, God, there were _no_ circumstances under which she wanted to have this conversation. Natasha was usually better at hiding her emotions, but she found herself licking her lips before she answered. “I barely remember him, either. I was taken away before I turned four.”

Barnes and Clint made exactly the same startled noise at the exact same time, which did at least mean that the attention was off Natasha and on them. She wondered briefly if this was the moment to make her escape, but she was arrested—briefly—by the flash of devastation in Barnes’ eyes. Like the news hurt him worse than anything else he’d learned since his resurrection.

“Oh, God, Tasha, I didn’t realize you were _that_ young,” Clint said softly.

Banner’s frown deepened as he looked back and forth between Clint and Natasha. “Am I…missing something here? Who took you?”

Clint shut his mouth with an almost audible snap, looking at Natasha with a slightly guilty look. Barnes lowered his eyes and looked away, a muscle in his jaw working, but said nothing. Steve started to open his mouth, but understanding suddenly dawned on his face and he winced, obviously connecting the current conversation with the one they’d had that morning. Natasha clenched her jaw briefly, then said shortly, “KGB.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, you were in the Red Room?” Stark blurted out.

Natasha whipped around to stare at him, caught off-guard enough to actually show how startled she was. Barnes, too, looked up at him sharply. “You’ve heard of it?”

“Soviet indoctrination program. Initially affiliated with Leviathan, eventually shifted to the KGB when Leviathan was destroyed,” Stark said, like he was reciting a lesson. “Originally started with orphaned girls, who were trained to be ruthless killers, obedient soldiers, and master spies, using a combination of brainwashing and punishment. Am I thinking of the right organization?”

Natasha’s whole body ran cold. All she said was, “That’s it.”

“Tony, how’d you know about that?” Clint asked.

Stark shrugged carelessly, but his eyes were worried as he looked at Natasha. “Aunt—my godmother dealt with one of the original models, back when S.H.I.E.L.D. was still the S.S.R. She thought they’d shut it down, but I overheard Fury telling her once about this new agent they’d hired who’d been trained in the Red Room. Guess that was you.”

Natasha tried to recover her composure. “Nick Fury talked about confidential S.H.I.E.L.D. matters while _you_ were in the room.”

“Okay, I’d dropped by unexpectedly and hid in the hall closet to eavesdrop, but Auntie knew I was there. She threatened to break my legs and stuff ‘em down my throat if I ever said a word about it and then told me the parts I missed after Fury left.” Stark cocked his head to one side. “Glad I didn’t know it was you—I probably wouldn’t have trusted you if I had. Auntie told me Dottie Underwood was a monster, and I’d’ve expected you to be the same.”

“That’s what they wanted their assets to be,” Barnes said, his voice low and hoarse. “Monsters.”

“How did _you_ know about this, Barnes?” Thor asked.

Barnes flinched, and again, Natasha felt that brief pang of malicious satisfaction, although she felt a little guiltier about it than before. Steve started to bristle protectively, but Barnes reached out—with his real hand, she noticed—and rested it on his shoulder, ostensibly holding him back. “They…I was one of their assets, too. I guess. I never knew who was…that wasn’t important, they never told me. But they—had me help out with training at one point. I—” He broke off, pressing his lips tightly together.

“So _that’s_ how you knew each other,” Jane said softly. “He helped train you?”

“Briefly.” Natasha wasn’t sure if she could trust herself to say more, but then she caught Clint’s eye. He was staring at her with a mixture of sympathy and a surprising amount of sternness—a look that very clearly said _Be fair, Natasha._ The same reproach she’d seen in his eyes earlier when she deliberately threw out a challenge against Barnes. She found herself adding, “He tried to help us escape. It didn’t work. One of the older trainees alerted them.”

Barnes gave a single, sharp nod. “They always had trouble with keeping me focused on a mission when kids were involved.” He looked up at Natasha, and she found herself crossing her arms tightly over her chest in an instinctive, protective gesture. “It worked later, though, right? You got out? Before they—graduated you?”

Natasha flinched. She pushed herself to her feet and turned away from the group without conscious thought. “No,” she choked out, and fled the room.

She didn’t know where she was going. She just knew she had to get _away._

The floor was enormous, with a twisting hallway and several unused, unexplored rooms. Natasha went as far as she could and found herself in an unlit room with a single window at the end of it. Actually, there might have been several windows, but the room was piled high with dusty boxes, creating a warehouse labyrinth feel. She wove her way over to the window and stood, still holding herself tightly, staring without seeing into the wet evening.

_I’d’ve expected you to be the same._ Well, he wasn’t wrong. She was. The Red Room had set out to make her that way, and they’d richly succeeded. She’d been everything they made her to be. Madame’s best pupil. All Clint and Fury had done was put a leash on her, but like a tiger in a circus, she hadn’t been tamed, only trained. At any minute, she could revert to the person, the _thing,_ that they’d made her, and this time there’d be no stopping her.

Maybe she should have let Barnes kill her after all.

“Natasha?”

“We ruled the world once, you know,” Natasha said without turning around. She knew who it was, knew that voice, but she didn’t want him to come any closer. He had to know the truth. “Before religion, before society and civilization. We killers, we misfits and demons. Before humanity forgot that it was an animal, we were the rulers that sat on those primal thrones. We were Fenris and Jörmungandr. The Grendel and the Grey Man and the Big Bad Wolf. We’re the reason you never forgot to fear the dark.”

“You’re not a monster, Natasha.” He came up beside her, and in the reflection of the window, she could see him reaching for her shoulder. “You’re _not._ ”

“I _am._ ” Natasha spun to face Sam, her arms still folded over her chest. “They made me to be one.”

“And you fought back.” Sam’s expression was serious. “You’re here and not slaughtering half of Europe. You fought for S.H.I.E.L.D., not HYDRA. You’re no monster.”

Natasha’s jaw clenched. She’d never told anyone what the graduation ceremony was—wasn’t even sure if Barnes really knew—but she almost wanted to tell Sam. Almost. “I don’t need a therapist.”

Sam’s expression didn’t change. “Good, ‘cause I’m not here to be one. That’d be a serious breach of professional ethics. Especially since there’s nothing you can tell me that will make me believe you’re as bad a person as you think you are.”

“You have no idea.”

“Try me.”

Natasha stared into his eyes. She’d almost told Steve, almost told Clint and Phil on a number of occasions, but she’d always backed down. Now…she could either be honest with Sam, or preserve their friendship. Preserve what little she had.

She’d lied through enough relationships. Lost enough when the truth eventually came out. Better to end it now before things got even harder. Better for him to walk away before she let herself dare to hope.

“When we were…ready to graduate,” she began in a low voice, “the final test—they made sure we would never…it made it that much easier to be what they wanted us to be. Nothing to care about, never anything more important than the job. If we can’t—I can’t—” She swallowed hard. “They sterilized us. Total hysterectomy. Took out everything. No chance. No hope. No…nothing. And I—” She choked off the words. “Tell me again I’m not a monster.”

Sam stared at her for a long moment. “That’s it? They thought that was enough to turn you into a monster—they made _you_ believe that?” he said at last. He took a step closer to her. “Just because you can’t give birth to your own kid doesn’t mean you’ll never care about anyone. I’ve seen you with Steve. With Jane. Hell, with FitzSimmons. Your heart is one of the biggest I’ve ever seen. Besides, I can’t have kids either.”

“What?” Natasha said, startled.

“Riley wasn’t the only one got shot that day, just the only one who died. I took a bullet in pretty much the exact wrong place for purposes of having kids. Doc who did the surgery said nothing doing.” Sam reached for Natasha again. “So the people in the Red Room thought your only worth was either killing or childbirth. Their loss. You’re worth more than that.”

“I always wanted to be a mother,” Natasha confessed. She still backed away from Sam’s touch, but at least she let her arms uncross.

“So adopt. Plenty of kids who need a mother. Plenty of kids out there who’d love to have a mother like you.” Sam’s mouth crooked in a smile. “I’d like to see that someday.”

Something in Natasha’s chest twisted, and she wasn’t sure why. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” This time, when Sam lifted his hand, Natasha didn’t move, and he cupped her cheek gently, wiping the tears away with the ball of his thumb. She hadn’t even realized she’d been crying.

“Thought you weren’t here to be a therapist,” she said, her voice hoarse.

“I’m not,” Sam said softly. “Therapists aren’t supposed to do this to their patients.”

His lips against hers were exactly what she’d been dreaming of for probably weeks on end—soft and warm, slightly chapped from his having bitten them a few too many times. She closed her eyes and sank into it, reaching up to wrap her arms around his neck, and his arms went around her waist to pull her closer. There was everything in Sam’s kiss: love and comfort and tenderness and just a hint of heat, although she wasn’t sure if that was passion or the lingering taste of the kung pao chicken from lunch. It didn’t matter. She never wanted it to end.

Finally, he pulled back and looked down at her. “Sorry. Probably wasn’t the best time to do that, but I’ve been wanting to do that for weeks.”

Natasha couldn’t help but laugh. “Same here.”

Sam kissed her again, then pressed his forehead against hers. “You wanna go back to the living room, or ditch everybody and go somewhere a little less…dusty to talk? Or…not talk. Whatever you want.”

Natasha took Sam’s hand and led him towards the stairwell. Whether they ended up talking or something a little less verbal, it didn’t matter. She’d told him the truth, and he still didn’t think she was a monster.

For the first time, she believed it.

 


End file.
